Police cracking down on speeding

Absolutely nothing to do with road safety. The govt has an easy target with road users and relies on making millions of dollars from them, under the guise of road safety, for general revenue. Coppers are merely puppets carrying out the orders of their superiors who answer to the crooked pollies. How many people would be killed a year if everyone overtook someone sitting on 95 kph and staying under the 100 k limi?. Common sense has once again been abandoned. Cops have a quota to reach every week and this is just another easy way of reaching it. The less time spent on the wrong side of the road the safer you are!!!! Except in Queersland where you are allowed to overtake on double lines so as to give a pushbike rider a meters clearance. Absolute stupidity from the newman idiot party...

Not again ...Police enforcing the law..people whinging about it ...BOOORIIING ...got any Aussie travel/camping related subject matter ?

Cheer
Greg

Safety wise, getting back on the correct side of the road is more important than a short time over the posted speed limit. They are the words offered by a copper running a Stay Upright course I did years ago. Governments seem to be using their own poor performance in road design and facilities as a way of making money. That money never goes towards improved road safety. If road safety was their overall goal, lots of overtaking lanes would stop the problem of someone needing to spend several seconds in the wrong lane trying to overtake a slower vehicle.

I resisted the easy call of saying that its just revenue raising for years - but provided we restrict this conversion to marginal increases over the limits the evidence is building that the enforcement of these sorts of things is doing more harm the good.

I.E. The nett impact of criminalizing people for small infractions appears to be causing more dead people in total when the unintended consequences are included.

In regards to road safety, never belive a single word the police tell you.

They are always sabre rattling about enforcement and how a single Km over can be a killer.

the truth is that the variations in road conditions and the differences between vehicles changes stopping distance far more than the minute ( in engineering terms) changes in speed.

The police and governments are always trying to justify harsher and harsher enforcement, ( of anything) because it buys votes from a certain sector and brings in huge amounts of revenue for very little in the way of results.

The die hard hoons and habitual high range speeders, know the limited locations where police frequent, they know when they are there and they don't get caught often.

There may well be a "crack down" on speeding......but unless you are speeding in locations identified as "problem areas" (high revenue locations), your chances of getting caught speeding are fairly low, especially in low range speeding offences.

In fact these days unless you are speeding in identified areas, running red lights or drink driving, your chances of getting caught for any trafffic offence is very low...and the general driving behaviour reflects this.

cheers

May be we should go back to the beginning of motoring and have some one walk in front of the car with a red flag

Now this will solve a number of problems

road rage
speeding
road accidents
save the fuel
employ lots of people

I am sure there will be many benefits of this program

now with the cost cutting going on and less beds for sick people this will help with that as well

only joking

Afternoon SDG,

I like to follow the following rule

Don't do the crime

if you can't do the time.

DBN05 (tas)

Gday,
I reckon its about time they focused on REAL dangerous drivers, like stupid passing manouvers, inconsiderate drivers, people towing set ups that are too big for their ability, fatigue....just bad drivers.
Not trying to catch people out for breaking a rule. Or isn't that financially viable?

Never yet seen speed kill anyone, if it did all your jet pilots and drag racers would be dead, its the way you choose to stop that does the damage.

Well Broken hill police are starting to crack down on people doing silly things when towing caravans ,

couple decided they were going the wrong way on the silver city hwy and decided to make a u turn and just past a crest on a hill and half way through they were wiped out by a truck heading to Mildura

they were lucky it was not one of the tipple road trains that use that road they would not have walked away from that

And there has been a number of accidents involving cars towing vans in this area so there was a bit in the local paper with police saying they plan a crack down


I am not having a go a people who tow vans this is what local area command have said

If you break the law you deserve to be fined. Laws have to be made for the lowest common denominator. If you argue that you are safe at speeds above the posted limit, you maybe right, but if you have the right to make that decision then in a free country like Oz so has everyone else for whom it maybe not safe. In one week I would pass hundreds of other vehicles within a couple of metres with a closing speed of over 100kph. I want, in fact demand, that the police ensure that everyone of these oncoming vehicles is obeying the law and are not deciding for themselves what is safe and what is not.
Think of this. You are passing a vehicle in a 100 zone at 120 and at that speed you will pass this vehicle and get back on the right side of the road before the car coming in the opposite direction. However maybe my 18 year old son is driving the car coming from the opposite direction and he assumes you are doing 100 and in in his judgement he runs off the road to avoid a head on. Not everyone has the same judgement as you. WAKE UP, you are not the only person on the road, obey the law and stop giving comfort to those who think they are above the law.

Was coming back from Barkly Homestead recently in a r'train similar to the one pictured. Had about 4 vehicles pass me on left-hand sweeping bends, with no more than 500M clear vision ahead. While they were passing, they would have had a 50M+ long mobile blind spot! but they kept going because they "knew" nothing was coming. Must have had faith in God, or some other supreme being?



As I've never timed myself, when overtaking a similar vehicle I did some stopwatch work a bit later. This road train was travelling at 90 kph, ie 25M/second.

A 200 series L'Cruiser took 21 sec. to pass, from when he indicated, to when he got back over the centreline. Some time later, a Prado towing a Jayco camper did his thing, same criteria as the previous Toyota. He took 38 seconds!!! That's not much under a km, and most of that on wrong side of the road.

So what I pick up from this is, if you're towing, you probably need 1.5-2 kms to SAFELY overtake a road train. And if you're not towing, hook in anyway!

Bob.

Sorry but I don't buy the safety angle or the don't do the crime argument either. It is so easy to fall foul of the law for any innocent reason such as the poor signage or confusing signage just to name two examples. The constant dropping of tolerances leaves people exposed when we hear people being booked for 1 or 3 over.

So the real question may well be are you safe from being booked as opposed to are you a safe driver. It is becoming more difficult to be law abiding unless you are actively driving 10 under because being right on the limit will almost certainly see you over. I really dislike where all this is heading but for a traveller visiting unfamiliar roads what are their real options?

It concerns me that overtaking has been made more difficult than it already is and I hope those responsible feel good about that. Interestingly I have never heard supporting evidence for all these changes, sure the road toll drops or whatever, but I have not seen stats to convince me that all this extra control has been responsible for the results.

When I see stats they point to speed, fatigue, not wearing belts but some if not all seem to have a strong connection with alcohol consumption as well. I always feel sad when people die on the road and certainly would like to see this did not happen but I suspect that selective use of stats is not necessarily providing an honest cause.

I suppose for my money I'll have to drive slower to make absolutely sure that I don't do the time.

Thanks for the timely reminder.

Kind regards

This issue is an old chestnut that seemingly rolls around everything so often…usually when someone’s father, mother, brother, sister is caught speeding…

This and prior threads revolve around the themes of using common sense, over policing, revenue raising to name but a few. And somehow police, most of whom are committed individuals, are frequently blamed for doing no more than what they are asked to do by the public – enforce laws.

So let’s stop blaming them and if you don’t like the laws head to your local politician not the local policeman to air you views.

The law is black and white for a very real reason, it leaves no grey area that needs to be interpreted. They are constructed in such a way that you are either abiding by them or you are breaking them. If it was left open for the general public to put their own interpretation or spin on road rules it would be a mess out there - giving rise to a whole new raft of complaints about policing, or lack of it!

Much is said about a common sense approach by the driving public and the police who enforce road rules. But what does common sense actually mean when it comes to applying it to road rules?

I'm betting everyone’s interpretation of what is sensible will be different - are we happy with that?

Besides I tend to find the common sense defence is applied when it suits someone’s own purposes and if it doesn’t they will do what they like anyway and justify why they did it later.

Is that what is meant by common sense?

And I notice much has been made (again) of the need to break the speed limit in order to safely pass a vehicle. The justification being a lessening of time spent on the wrong side of the road or the need to get back on the right side because a vehicle is approaching in the opposite direction.

This argument is flawed to the extent that if you can’t pass the vehicle at the posted speed limit within the distance available and without speeding, then it shouldn’t have been attempted in the first place.

For whatever reason there will always be someone on our roads that will be doing slightly less than the speed limit and there will always be someone justifying that it is reasonable to breach the limit in order to pass. I suspect it wouldn’t matter what the posted maximum limit was, be it 80kph or 150kph, the complaint would still be the same and there'd still be threads like this appearing.

And here is the crunch as I see it – it isn’t about a lack of common sense being applied by the perpetrators or the enforcers; it isn’t about poorly designed rules, after all surely we need road rules, for my mind it is about a lack of patience by far too many drivers on the road today…

Time poor people can tend to justify anything they do in the name of "saving time".

But even patience is something that will be open to interpretation. How much should we display before "common sense" is exercised, and are we happy that the next bloke on the road has a good handle on what is common sense, and how patient is he (or she!).

Yep, all very subjective and that is why we are stuck with black and white road rules for which there is no minimum or maximum degree of compliance. A breach, is a breach with consequences attached, usually a hit to the back pocket...

Infringing gazetted laws is a bit like pregnancy – you either are or you aren’t...

Can't wait to head to Queensland in 2 weeks for our 1 month holiday. With the police booking you for 1kph over the limit and the online campsite booking system for the NP it should be a hoot.
If the cops are going to book me for overtaking someone whilst I temporarily exceed the limit well good luck to them. The fine will be happily paid as it is a small price to pay compared to my family being killed in a head on collision.

Speed kills is a mantra being recited by police and zombies.

If it's really about road safety then strict no excuses enforcement wouldn't be advocated rather officers would be told to use discretion.
How many of you have pulled on to the wrong side of the road to overtake a slow driver just to see them get smart and speed up,, u have 2 choices either brake and pull in behind again (if there is still a gap) or speed up more to get around. The longer you spend on the wrong side of the road the more the danger. I'm sorry but people like the one in the example should be targeted ( idiotic moron drivers) but you watch police would rather book the overtaking vehicle and state that it is no excuse. When NSW Police start leading by example and stop parking in no stopping zones to buy morning tea, doing illegal U-Turns and speeding just because the can and they feel like it well then I'll start watching my speedo instead of the road while on on the wrong side overtaking. bring back old time coppers,, they didn't have uni degrees but they had comon sense and obeyed the road rules leading by example.

Just two points:

It is amazing isn't it; most of the rest of the Western world has higher speed limits than Australia yet those countries seem to manage perfectly well - obviously they have no idea about proper road safety?

If speed cameras were so expensive to install and maintain that they ran at a considerable loss each year... how many of them do you think there would be?

Was the road toll on NT roads any worse than other state country tolls when the NT had open limits ?
Do they still have open limits on some highways ?

While I refuse to get drawn either way on this, but there seems to be a large number of views around the use of common sense, and opposing views where the law is black and white.
Police are the enforcement arm and need to have clear guidelines as to how to enforce the law. I could not imagine the inconsistencies that would occur if we allowed Police the ability of interpreting the law. And that is not a reflection on their ability in the job that do currently.
The courts and judicairy are the ones able to interpret the law as well as make judgements.
With every ticket or infringment notice issued by the Police you have the right to challenge it and have it heard before a court.
That is the forum for the arguement of application Common sense or justification of why the alledge offence accurred.

Alan

Question: How can they tell if a driver is fatigued? And then what do they book you with?

I didn't know that being fatigued is i the rules or even has a set of tests that a driver must pass in order to prove they are not fatigued.

Queensland police will continue to operate state’s speed cameras despite $10m overtime bill

SPEED cameras will remain in police hands for the foreseeable future, with plans to outsource operations to the private sector still on hold.

Budget papers included four years of forward estimates for the Camera Detected Offences Program, with earnings of close to $175 million.

That money will be split between Transport and Main Roads, Police, Queensland Health and the State Penalties Enforcement Registry for administrative costs, trauma recovery, rehabilitation services and road safety.

Queensland is the only state where police have sole responsibility for speed camera operations which earn officers $10 million a year in overtime.

The biggest hurdle is understood to be the regions, where speed enforcement is not as lucrative as the southeast corner.

Queensland Police Union president Ian Leavers said their opposition to the outsourcing of speed camera operations was well known.

“We would prefer it was taken off the table altogether,” he said.

The budget also included $1 million for a fixed and point-to-point camera system in Legacy Way, on top of the $2.9 million allocated the previous year.


THE 6TH SENTENCE SAYS IT ALL.....MONEY AND NOT SAFETY IS BEHIND THE SPEED CAMERA.....Don't talk about cops and pollies trying to save lives when their priority is making money.

This is a funny topic.
On one hand we have the don't speed and you have nothing to worry about.
Plus the ones that say doing 95 in a 100 zone doesn't affect anyone and it's only going to cost you 5 minutes.

and on the other hand how about if you aren't doing the speed limit you show a bit of courtesy and pull over and let the people that want to travel at the speed limit by.

Same for the people that say i'm doing the speed limit in the right lane so I don't have to move over for anybody.
Truth of the matter is your speedo is probably out and you're not doing the limit.
Once again show some courtesy and get out of their way.

The arrogance shown by some drivers never ceases to amaze me.
It's simple show respect and courtesy to other drivers and everyone is happy.

If the Government were fair dinkum about speed being the main reason people get killed on the roads they would make all vehicles be speed limited to a set speed, But they're not going to make much money out of that.